


Slaystrid

by poetic_devices



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Drama, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hiccstrid - Freeform, Hunter AU, Supernatural Elements, Vampire AU, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, general badassery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-03 02:06:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetic_devices/pseuds/poetic_devices
Summary: Killing vamps is the Hofferson family business. Astrid just wants to make it through college. Hiccup just wants to make it through life. Or death. Or whatever. Hilarity, drama and angst ensue for this thrilling tale of true love and friendship. And a deep, deep hatred for chocolate chip cookies. You've been warned.





	1. This semester's gonna suck

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm actually transferring this story over from a bunch of installments I wrote some years back over the course of a few months, which I posted to tumblr for a little while. I'm planning on revising it as I go along, and I wanted to share it on ao3, because I haven't forgotten how much I love this story. Enjoy, and much love!

Well, Astrid supposed her morning couldn’t have gone any _worse ._  But then, it was always better to set the bar as low as possible, just to avoid any additional disappointment.

And man, talk about a disappointing first week. Second week in, and she was stressed the frick out.

First, she’d woken at the asscrack of dawn to get in some weight training before breakfast.

After showering off all the sweat, she’d shuffled back downstairs, where her mother had forced her to drink at least half a glass of the “special” protein shake (with garlic, which made her breath reek until she brushed her teeth).

 _Then_ she found out twenty minutes too late that the back left tire of her little grey Honda was flat, so she had to ride her bike to school– her parents assured her it would be good for her legs, anyway.

Training pissed her off enough, but this? Gods, Astrid wanted nothing more than a cold-something from Starbucks and a good, long nap. But she didn’t nap. She hadn’t napped since she was five. Her body just wouldn’t allow it, because why should she ever be allowed to enjoy _anything_ , right?

And now the weird Haddock guy was in her Physio class this semester.

Didn’t _that_ just take the cake.

Wasn’t it awkward enough in high school? They had never officially been _friends_ friends, just… people who sometimes said “hey” in the hallways and discussed calc homework during study hall. They barely knew each other.

But of course, now they were lab partners in their _shared_ advanced physiology course for semester one. And maybe semester two (or maybe not), depending on how ticked Astrid felt by the end of the first.

“Hey… hey!” An easily recognizable voice caught her attention. Speak of the devil.

Astrid snapped her head around to look behind her in the crowded second-floor corridor of Berk Tech’s natural sciences hall. It was him again.

Hiccup Haddock was half jogging through the mass of students to get to Astrid, who stood as patiently as she could while keeping out of the way of swarming students, waiting for _him_ to reach her.

“Hey,” he repeated when he was finally standing in front of her, “So, here’s the thing, I wasn’t really paying attention during the last ten minutes of class and…”

Astrid rolled her eyes, finishing his sentence for him, “And you need the schedule that the prof put on the board?”

“Yeah.” Hiccup cringed by way of apology, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry.”

Astrid watched his expression, taking in everything while trying not to seem weird about it. Bright green eyes, shaggy hair that somehow worked for him, crooked front teeth… dang, and he looked really tired, too. Had his other professors already begun assigning the papers?

He didn’t look great. Maybe he was getting sick. It wasn’t really that weird for a lot of students to get sick in the beginning of a new school year. Masses of strange bodies, too many different people breathing, Astrid was amazed that there weren’t more epidemics occurring every year on this campus.

She also wished she could pinpoint exactly what was so different about the Haddock kid, ever since graduation.

Back in May, he’d been absent from school for two or three weeks, on account of some virus. _Worse than the flu_ , Astrid remembered hearing, but she couldn’t recollect exactly _what_ had been wrong with him.

All she knew was, when Hiccup Haddock returned to school, he wasn’t really the same kid she knew from AP calc.

Before the long absence he’d always been relatively friendly, even outgoing (although maybe a little overconfident in some cases), and always ready with a smile when he saw Astrid passing by in the hallways.

She still felt a twinge of regret for rarely returning those smiles. He’d never done any wrong by her, and really, there weren’t a ton of people in the world who smiled at people in the hallways like you were the only thing that mattered on a dreary Monday morning.

But after his return and all the way through to graduation, there was something… out of place, Very much so. If that even made any sense. He hadn’t really been Hiccup; he’d looked like he might’ve still been sick since there wasn’t as much color in his cheeks, not as much life in his eyes. Come to think of it, every other week they looked tired and bloodshot– naturally, there were rumors. Oh, and they got _bad_.

The worst consisted of hushed whispers in the school bathrooms between any of the scum who loved to get the dirt on people that maybe, just maybe, Hiccup Haddock had cracked.

Became a junkie, an addict. Maybe blow, maybe heroin, maybe something else.

The rumor was often accompanied by the claim that his dad had finally sent him to rehab (Astrid scoffed at this– even an idiot would have known this couldn’t be true. Hiccup would’ve been killed dead by that lawyer dad of his before keeping an addict in the house).

And his overconfidence had been replaced with a sort of forced silence. He barely ever spoke to anyone when he’d returned in June. He made it to graduation without any more bumps, although perhaps a little worse for wear but after that, and Astrid never really expected to see him again.

Especially not in college.

In hindsight, she’s not really sure why she _wouldn’t_ expect him to go on to college. The kid had been brilliant.

Astrid blinked, looking back into the eyes of the very same person. Two months into college and she still wasn’t over it– the fact that he was there, and that he was real, not just a strange high school memory.

“So… do you have the schedule?”

“Hmm?” She blinked rapidly, forgetting herself for a moment. “Oh! Yeah, yeah.” She reached towards her bag.

“Am I bothering you with this?” When Astrid looked back up, Hiccup had a concerned frown tugging at the corners of his mouth, his shoulders tense beneath a heavy-looking camo Jansport backpack.

“It’s just a schedule, no worries. Here,” Astrid searched through her messenger bag and pulled out a planner, opening it up to the current date. Hiccup leaned over it and scanned the writing quickly.

“Awesome, thanks!” He didn’t, as Astrid had been expecting, reach for his own planner to jot anything down. He didn’t so much as whip his phone out to snap a screenshot of the page. Instead he gave the page a quick once-over and, much to Astrid’s confusion, turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

“Hey, wait! Didn’t you want to copy this down?” She flung the question down the hall towards the reddish-brown scruff of hair already nearly swallowed in the swarm.

“Nah, thanks though!” Hiccup called back, looking behind him without even slowing down. “Got it right up here” he answered, tapping a finger to his temple.

With half a grin forming on his freckled face, he turned to look forwards once more and disappeared in the sea of Berk Tech students, leaving Astrid with eyebrows raised up to her hairline as she continued to stand in the middle of the bio hallway. Just before–

“ _Ack!_ Hey, watch it!” Astrid snapped when another student flew past her, knocking her planner to the ground. She angrily blew a few strands of blonde from her eyes as she bent to pick it up.

This semester was _so_ going to suck.

_**< ><><>** _

  
Astrid didn’t really find out about the family business - you know, the whole “killing-supernatural-creatures-of-evil” business - until a bit later in life.

Age sixteen.

Because by then, her parents just really, really couldn’t hide it from her anymore. Poor little Astrid had seen some shit in her day.

So there was that one time she found a shrunken head in her mom’s closet with its mouth sewn shut (it gave little four-year-old Astrid night terrors for months).

Then there was the incident with the set of stainless steel, razor-sharp fighting knives locked up in a chest in the basement (skip to ten-year-old Astrid snooping around with a stolen key to look for cool stuff for a school project), and let’s just say, her parents were _not_ pleased when they found her trying to throw a couple at a homemade target in her bedroom soon after (“I mean, her aim is wonderful for her age, but _knife-throwing?_ She’s only ten! Honey _where_ did she find those???” “Looks like you’ll be a great hunter in no time, sweetheart.”)

So anyway, fast forward six years. Sixteen-year-old Astrid was _absolutely_ down for kicking some vampire butt. She’d been allowed to watch a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a kid, and she’d dressed up as a vampire for Halloween, one time. She’d been somewhat mentally prepared, at the very least.

Knives? Wooden stakes? Cool protective outfit (leather jacket, leather gloves, sturdy black jeans and badass utility belt for weapons)? Hell yeah, she was all over it. Her parents were, as the kids say, _psyched_ to find out that their only daughter wasn’t totally freaked out by the big not-so-secret-secret.

Well, secret for the rest of the town. Not so secret within the house.

So. Vampire slaying. It was basically the family business. Of course, the Hoffersons had their normal day jobs so that they could afford groceries and college tuition and all that jazz.

Astrid’s dad worked as an accountant for his “normal person” job, and her mother worked as a therapist. Which was helpful, to say the least, when the two announced to their daughter that she was suddenly going to have a _lot_ of responsibility to take on as a slayer.

Strict training regimes. Semi-strict diet (although now that she was in college, things did change a little). Astrid was never one to take shit from anybody, and that included her parents. She assumed they were secretly proud of that trait, but they never said it.

Aside from that, Astrid’s biggest worry right now was getting through her classes and keeping up in her freshman year.

Hell, maybe she’d even drag herself to a few parties - gods knew her friend Ruff would find a way to drag her to some, anyway. She’d be fine.

Yeah, it was gonna be fine. As long as physio with Hiccup Haddock didn’t totally suck the life out of her. But she could handle it.


	2. Powerade and Party Animals

_One Week Ago_

 

“All righ’ class, this lab is only going to count fer about twenty percent of yehr grade, so no pressure. Hehe.” Half the class rolled their eyes. “I hope yeh all remember the topics, because apparently, your regular prof forgot to write ‘em on the board. So as soon as I pair you up, yeh’ll be choosin’ yer topics at random. Now, yeh’ll all be divided into groups of two– I will do this by randomly pointing at people, and then pointing to more people. You’re in college, you’ll get it eventually. No one need worry. So... let’s start!”

The Scottish professor subbing in for the physio class that day was definitely enjoying himself, given the way he was grinning impishly at the class from the front of the room.

“Okay then, you,” he pointed with his left hand (or rather, his super-rad titanium prosthetic) to a boy in the front of the classroom, “and you,” another point, this time to a guy way in back. “You two will be working together. Next group: You,” he motioned to Astrid, sitting in the second row of sleek black lab tables, “and you.” The next swipe of the metallic hand replacement was towards another boy just a few rows behind.

Astrid turned her head to see who it was– crap. It was that kid from high school: Hiccup Haddock. He gave her a sheepish grin and an innocent shrug of his shoulders when she looked at him, as if to say, “Welp, I guess we’re partners, huh? What are the odds?”

Astrid faced front again, glaring at the board. The sub, professor “Gobber,” which was what he called himself, eyed the blonde with a raised eyebrow, which was about as bushy as his moustache.

“Is there a problem, miss…?”

“Hofferson.”

“Aye, of course. Is there a problem miss Hofferson?”

Biting the inside of her cheek before speaking again, Astrid replied in a rather clipped tone of voice, “No. No problem, that’s fine.”

That’s fine. That’s just _perfect_.

 

_**< ><><>** _

 

“You… aren’t happy.”

“Hmm?” Astrid glanced up from her planner to look at the pair of green eyes bearing down on her. That look he was giving her was really pissing her off.

“What was that?” she asked, glancing back down. The buzz of the dining hall did little to distract her from her schedule for the day. She had an hour and a half to eat and “chat” with her new lab partner for the semester. Gods help her.

“I said, you’re not happy. Are you?” He tapped a french fry against his plate in thought. “You don’t like the fact that we were paired up for the lab and you’re looking at that planner like you’re nearly ready to kill someone.”

Astrid snorted and reached for her bottle of Powerade. “Funny, I don’t really think I’m _nearly_ ready to kill someone– I think I _am_ ready to kill someone.”

“Okay… Sorry?” Those stupid eyes continued to stare right into Astrid as if she were made of the sheerest piece of tissue paper on earth.

With an exasperated sigh, she answered, “You don’t _have_ to be sorry, it’s not your fault the prof plunked us together for the project. I mean, I think we know that we’re both pretty smart,”

“Obviously.”

Astrid wanted to wipe that cocky little half-grin off his face when he said that. He clearly noticed her irritation, but all he did was shrug in response. “All I meant was, how else could we be taking the advanced physio course?”

“Sure… but anyway,” Astrid continued, “I know we’re both more than capable of getting this thing done with a more than decent grade. So you don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

“So…?” Hiccup looked earnestly back at her, like he had been expecting a better answer.

Astrid set aside her drink. “So, I’ve just been really busy lately and need to concentrate on planning out my week. I was going over my schedule just before you decided you were gonna come and join me for lunch.” Her words were pointed, but they seemed to have little effect whatsoever on Hiccup Haddock, who stood his ground.

“Is _that_ why you’re annoyed with me?”

“I’m _not_ annoyed.”

“Really? Because you seem annoyed.” Hiccup leaned across the table, just close enough to Astrid that she was a little less than comfortable. But she wasn’t gonna let him win that one, so she stayed right where she was and refused to blink when he made eye contact. “You have this tiny little eye twitch and..” he lifted a finger to point, but Astrid batted it away.

“I’m _not. Annoyed,”_ she snarled, annoyed.

Hiccup lifted an eyebrow and opened his mouth to say something else, then seemed to think better of it and stuffed a couple fries into his mouth instead.

He was right, though.

Astrid was way more than a little annoyed; she had been busy as all hell for the past few weeks, her parents had practically ordered her to increase her training time after school, and they had even banned her from more than an _hour_ of socializing per day on weekdays.

Apparently, her crazy “hunter” parents didn’t just destroy demons, they destroyed college social lives, too. What the fuck was the point of being an adult when you couldn’t _do_ the shit you wanted to do? It wasn’t like she was asking them for spending money or bringing home boys or anything like that. She was a good kid. She’d always been a good kid.

And now she had to deal with the added awkwardness of being paired for a lab with a guy from high school, who was sort of a friend… but sort of not?

Of course, if Astrid ever wanted to be a therapist in the future, she would have to get over being awkward with _anyone_.

All this project was doing was taking out of her already-limited social life. And that included hanging out with her best friend, Revlin (“Ruff”) Thorston, who attended a college nearby.

Well, at least Ruff would get a kick out of Astrid’s story, once she told her all about it. About the project, and her lab partner, and how different said lab partner seemed since last year.

But where the whole… _slaying_ business was concerned, Astrid would rather do an extra five hours a day of this project than give up her entire social life in college for some family business, no matter how cool it had sounded at first.

As soon as she got used to the fact that her lab partner was oddball-Haddock-who-liked-science, the guy most people expected to forget about after high school.

But in all honesty, Astrid really did have too much to do. Her schedule was burning a hole in her little planner that she carried around everywhere, and the daily schedule went something along the lines of:

 

_\- morning: healthy breakfast, get to school, make it through morning classes until lunch_

_\- healthy lunch (one cheat meal allowed per week)_

_\- get through afternoon classes if she had any that day_

_\- go home_

_\- weight training, yoga and running for two hours_

_\- homework for three hours (it really depended on how much she had to do each night)_

_\- Study for one hour_

_\- eat a good, protein-packed dinner and get to bed by midnight if she was lucky_

_\- wake up, rinse and repeat_

 

It changed a little bit from day to day, but it pretty much retained that basic format. Study, eat, train, repeat. And maybe sleep, if she had time.

“If you’re so tired, why not get a coffee or something?”

“What?” Astrid’s eyes snapped up again. She’d been zoning out.

Hiccup had finished his fries, and now his full and undivided attention was back on her. “Coffee?” he repeated. “Maybe you should buy something caffeinated. It might wake you up a little bit.”

“My Powerade’s just fine,” Astrid grabbed the half-filled bottle in front of her and took a gulp of the red liquid, just to make her point. Hiccup eyed it with a frown. “And besides, it’s better for me. More electrolytes and stuff.”

“Uh huh,” Hiccup muttered, picking at what was left of the fries on his paper plate. Dining hall food. It wasn’t the greatest. “Whatever you say. But you might get a little more energy for your classes a lot faster if you drank a little coffee instead.” He punctuated the end of his sentence with a shrug.

This guy seemed to have a habit of shrugging when he didn’t know what else to say. It was one of those annoying habits people picked up when they just couldn’t figure out how to _not_ be totally awkward.

Astrid pressed her lips together, before asking, “I take it you’re a coffee fanatic then?”

That earned her a small laugh from across the table as Hiccup replied, “Uhh, no. I don’t really drink coffee.”

“Then what?” she interrogated, showing no mercy as she screwed the cap back onto her own drink, “Monster energy drinks? You know those really aren’t the best thing for you either-”

“No no, not those either, ew,“ He gave a dramatic shudder, scrunching up his nose in disgust, "I don’t put anything into me that has more chemicals than the biochem lab.”

“Sports drinks? Protein shakes?”

Hiccup shook his head to both. “Nope,” he said, making a little _pop_ with his lips on the P.

Curious, Astrid gently closed her planner and slid it aside. “Okay… so no coffee, no Powerade, aaand no protein shakes.”

“Right.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be one of _those_ people, would you?”

Hiccup shifted in his seat. All of a sudden his demeanor had changed. He looked, well, uncomfortable. _Good,_ thought Astrid.

“Uhh, one of _those_ people?”

“You know,” Astrid said with a roll of her eyes, “one of those people who’s always peppy and ready to go in the mornings and doesn’t need any coffee or _anything–_ you’re the kind of person people hate _._ ” Smirking, she took her planner and stuffed it back into her messenger bag, standing from her seat to go.

“I am not one of _those_ people,” Hiccup insisted. He was clearly trying not to crack a smile, but he wasn’t trying very hard. “I just don’t need coffee every morning, that’s all” Hiccup also stood up from his chair.

“If not coffee or protein shakes, then what?”

“Just… trust me, it’s a lot more effective than Monster energy drinks.”

 

**_< ><><>_ **

 

_Now_

 

“Honey…” Mr. Hofferson began, looking sheepishly back at his daughter as he stirred the big vat of beef stew on the stove. “Would you hold it against us if we, um, _re-scheduled_ family dinner for next Friday? Your mother and I got a last-minute call from a friend over in Salem." Salem. That was just an hour and a half away from Berk. One hour away if you were headed from Portland. "Poltergeist situation.” His mouth spread in a grimace, making him look even more apologetic in his “Needs More Garlic” apron as he tapped the cat head-shaped wooden spoon against the rim of the stew pot. “We’ll be home by tomorrow morning at seven. Eight o’clock at the latest.”

Astrid shrugged.

“That’s fine.”

“Really?” Her father eyed her suspiciously, as if it shouldn’t have been that easy.

And he would have been right.

 

The second her parents had tossed their gear into the trunk of their sleek (black, go figure) jeep, kissed their daughter goodbye, and the door _clicked_ shut, Astrid took the stairs two at a time.

The second she was safely in her room, she dove for her phone. She swiped the screen to unlock it, then dialed up Ruff Thorston immediately.

Ruff picked up after two rings.

“What’s up, wild child?” her friend teased over the phone. Astrid rolled her eyes as she hopped back off of her bed, making a beeline for her closet.

She _must_ have something decent in there somewhere. Even amidst all the black leggings, black leather, black t-shirts, hoodies, basically her closet was just a bunch of black.

Not that she was emo or anything. It was just… her parents.

Yeah, the slayer parents who insisted she always dress in a way that kept her prepared for anything. Like sneaking around at night to hunt killer vamps. Or whatever. She’d never actually _killed_ a vamp before, but hey, there were firsts for everything. The first kill was pretty much a rite of passage for any slayer.

Before that, well… you were really just a slayer-in-training, weren’t you?

“Please, tell me you were planning to go out tonight?” Astrid practically begged over the phone as she tried to shove past all the black.

“Oh, _hell_ yes.” Ruff’s tone went from playful yet tame, to wayyy too excited in two seconds flat. “The Jorgenson’s, ten o’clock,” she said, like she’d rehearsed it to herself beforehand, and Astrid could hear the cat-with-cream smile through the phone. “Swing by my house at five of. Wear something sexy, or I don’t think I can be seen with you.”

“You’re the best, Ruff.”

“Yeah, yeah.” There was a laugh on the other end. “We both knew that already. Remember, _sexy._ Don’t give me that half-assed thing you tried the last time we went to the Jorgenson’s. Everybody’s gonna think we’re like, nerds or something.”

Astrid snorted into the receiver. “Ruff, we _are_ nerds.”

“Well yeah, but a pyrotechnic engineer’s gotta have fun _some_ times.”

Grinning, Astrid reached towards the very back of her closet. Her hand came back out grasping a thin piece of fabric. A skimpy little thing, she could already tell.

When he let the material fall open from her hand, she realized it was a romper. A very… _sheer_ romper. And it was also black, but at least black counted as one of the sexier colors, right? She’d have to find a pair of shoes to go along with it.

Right, she still had those cute nude heels from her high school graduation party. Those shoes had done some magical things to her calves. Whatever brand they were, she would swear by it.

“No worries about the outfit,” Astrid said. “I’m good.”

“Good. See you in an hour!”

Ruff hung up.

Astrid sighed, tossing her phone on the bed as she examined her find more closely. Yep, that sure was some sheer material.

 

Astrid always got a little nervous before parties. Lots of people, mixed with loud music and alcohol (and gods knew what else) weren’t exactly the same as a comfortable couch and a good movie, but it was a freer kind of fun. And hey, she was allowed to have fun sometimes, wasn’t she?

 

_**< ><><>** _

 

“I dunno, Legs. I’m reeeally not the partying type, you know me.”

“Come on, Hiccup.”

Ferdinand “Fishlegs” Ingreman had been Hiccup’s best friend ever since the second grade, where they were both sent to the principal’s office at the same time to testify against two different kids who had bullied them.

They were practically meant to be.

But one thing that Hiccup Haddock did _not_ do was parties. He just didn’t.

“Hiccup, it’s the _Jorgenson’s._ Their parties are like, _the_ most anticipated parties for Berk tech students. This would be the greatest first college party _ever_.”

“I… I really don’t know, Legs. I’ve got a lot of work to do and-”

“It’s a flipping Friday, for god’s sakes!” Fishlegs said passionately, throwing his hands in the air like he was about to do Shakespeare. “You’ve got the whole weekend ahead of you. Pleeease?” He begged. “Just this one party. And then I’ll never ask you to go to another one again, if it means that much to you.”

Hiccup sighed, bringing a hand to brush away the hairs tickling the back of his neck. He shifted on the edge of his bed, thinking. It was going to be really tough to argue his way out of this one. “I… okay.”

“All right!” Fishlegs pumped his fists in the air, triumphant. “This is going to be _so_ much fun, I’m telling you.”

Hiccup forced himself to smile. He couldn’t have felt more anxious if he tried.

 

What made the situation ten times worse was that Fishlegs, his best friend - pretty much his only friend, other than his cat, Toothless - had no idea about Hiccup’s… condition.

His “condition” wasn’t really an illness, per se, although sometimes it definitely felt like one.

Okay, well it really depended on how you looked at it. Hiccup’s condition could, from certain perspectives, not qualify at all as treatable illness, since there was no medication for it, a widespread disbelief of said condition, and even better still, no known cure.

From other perspectives (like, from the perspectives of any reasonable person in the known world), his situation might qualify as highly dangerous. A risk. A monstrosity. But not dangerous to Hiccup, necessarily.

More like dangerous to the general public.

See, the thing about vampires is that being in public, no matter the situation, can be very, very hazardous for anybody with a pulse, and an affinity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 


End file.
